Think about what happens when we finish with a plastic bottle, a food container or the wrapping from something we’ve bought at the supermarket. We put it in the recycling bin, or perhaps the general rubbish, and give it very little further thought. Once the bin lorry has taken it away, the problem seems to have been dealt with.
Of course, it hasn’t. Somebody still has to do something with it, and what happens next tells us quite a lot about the way Britain manages its resources.
We spend enormous sums extracting oil and gas, processing these into plastics, manufacturing products and transporting them around the country. Much of the resulting packaging is used only once, sometimes for a matter of minutes. We then spend more money collecting it, sorting it and either attempting to recycle it or getting rid of it. Astonishingly, we also export hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic waste while continuing to import newly manufactured materials.
There must be a better way of doing things.
The encouraging news is that some of the solutions are already being developed here in Britain. A new recycling factory in Corby, Northamptonshire, working alongside an advanced sorting facility in nearby Kettering, offers an interesting example of what can be achieved. Elsewhere, researchers and manufacturers are experimenting with incorporating recycled plastic into roads, concrete, paving, kerbs and other building products.
These developments suggest that we need to change how we think about plastic waste. Much of what we currently throw away is not necessarily worthless rubbish. It is material that has already consumed considerable energy, labour and natural resources in its production. Throwing it away simply means starting the whole process again.
There are environmental arguments for changing this, certainly, but there are also economic and industrial ones. Better recycling could support British manufacturing, create employment and reduce our dependence on imported raw materials. At a time when we hear so much about the need to rebuild Britain’s industrial base, it seems extraordinary that we should be wasting resources that could contribute to doing precisely that.
How much plastic can we actually recycle?
The latest figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs give us some idea of the scale of the challenge. In 2025, the UK generated approximately 2.108 million tonnes of plastic packaging waste, of which 1.207 million tonnes was recorded as recycled. That represents a recycling rate of 57.3 per cent, an improvement on the 53.5 per cent achieved in 2024.
On the face of it, this is encouraging. More than half our plastic packaging is now being recycled, at least according to the official reporting system. It is worth remembering, though, that these figures concern packaging rather than every type of plastic waste, and that the recycling total includes material exported abroad for processing.
They also leave approximately 901,000 tonnes of plastic packaging that was not recorded as recycled in 2025. That’s a great deal of material to lose every year.
I suspect many people assume that almost anything made from plastic can be recycled once it has been put into the appropriate bin. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple.
Different plastics have different chemical properties, and this affects how easily they can be recycled. The polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, used in many drinks bottles is relatively straightforward to process when properly collected and sorted. The same is true of high-density polyethylene, commonly used for milk bottles and detergent containers. Polypropylene, which is often found in food tubs and yoghurt pots, can also be recycled.
These materials can be sorted, washed, shredded and melted down into pellets that manufacturers use to make new products. Where the necessary quality standards are met, recycled plastics can even be used to produce new food packaging.
The real difficulties often begin with the flexible plastics used in crisp packets, sweet wrappers, frozen food bags, bread packaging and the seemingly endless quantities of film wrapped around supermarket products.
Some of these materials are perfectly capable of being recycled, while others combine several different layers of plastic, adhesives or metallic coatings. These combinations may be excellent for keeping food fresh, but they can be a nightmare for recycling companies. Different plastics do not necessarily mix well when melted, and contaminated or poorly sorted material can produce an inferior product.
For many years, the result has been that considerable quantities of flexible plastic have gone into general waste, even when some of the individual materials could have been recovered.
Research published by the Local Government Association in August 2026 estimated that around 392,000 tonnes of plastic film enters household waste streams in England every year. Of that, approximately 51 per cent was considered recyclable, with a further 25 per cent potentially recyclable depending on its composition.
Yet local councils currently collect only around 15,000 tonnes of household plastic film for recycling, with supermarket collection points accounting for less than another 5,000 tonnes.
Those figures are remarkable. We have an enormous quantity of potentially recyclable material, but only a tiny proportion is being collected through the existing arrangements. The difficulty is partly one of collection, but it is also about having the industrial facilities capable of processing the material afterwards.
This is why what is happening in Northamptonshire deserves attention.
Kettering and Corby show what can be done
In September 2026, a new £20 million plastic recycling factory opened in Corby. Operated by Eurokey, part of the Reconomy group, it occupies a site of around 138,000 square feet and is designed to process up to 38,000 tonnes of plastic each year when running at full capacity.
That is a substantial investment in an industry which, as we shall see, has been experiencing serious economic difficulties.
The new factory does not operate in isolation. It receives material from Eurokey’s sorting facility in nearby Kettering, which has the capacity to process up to 70,000 tonnes annually.
What makes the Kettering operation interesting is its use of modern sorting technology, including infrared systems and robotic equipment. Different polymers can be identified and separated far more accurately than would be possible through traditional manual sorting alone.
This is important because one of the greatest obstacles to recycling is the mixture of materials arriving at processing plants. A load containing several different plastics, food residues and other contaminants is much harder to turn into something useful than a properly separated stream of material.
At Kettering, sophisticated equipment helps distinguish between the different types of plastic. Suitable material is then transported to Corby, where it undergoes further processing. The plastic is cleaned, shredded and transformed into pellets that can be supplied to manufacturers.
The intention is to turn discarded packaging into material that can be used to make new packaging, keeping the plastic in circulation rather than replacing it with newly manufactured material.
There is nothing especially mysterious about the principle. It resembles what manufacturers have done with metal for generations. We don’t generally regard a piece of scrap steel as something that must be buried or burnt. We recognise that it can be melted down and used again.
Plastic presents different technical challenges, but the underlying economic argument is much the same.
Eurokey estimates that the new Corby factory could reduce the need to export plastic waste by the equivalent of around 1,900 shipping containers a year when operating at capacity. The investment is also expected to create more than 30 jobs.
Thirty jobs might not sound especially impressive when considered against the scale of unemployment or industrial decline in some parts of Britain. But that is hardly the point. A nationwide network of sorting facilities, recycling factories and businesses manufacturing products from recovered plastics could support a great many jobs, including skilled technical and engineering work.
It would also mean that more of the value generated by recycling remained in Britain.
Consider what currently happens when we export plastic waste. We have already paid for the material to be collected and often sorted. The further processing takes place abroad, where the employment, investment and manufacturing opportunities associated with it are created. Recycled material may eventually return to this country in the form of products that we then purchase.
There are circumstances in which exporting recyclable material makes commercial sense, and we should not pretend that every shipment abroad is environmentally irresponsible. But the extent of our dependence on overseas processing does raise a question about our industrial priorities.
Why should Britain be content to export a potentially useful resource when we could be developing more of the capacity to use it ourselves?
Could we build roads from discarded plastic?
One of the more interesting possibilities for recycling involves putting waste plastic into construction materials. This is not some distant technological dream. Experiments have already taken place in Britain, and certain recycled-plastic construction products are commercially available.
Take road surfacing.
Most roads are surfaced with asphalt, consisting principally of aggregates held together by bitumen, which is derived from petroleum. Some companies have developed methods of incorporating processed waste plastic into asphalt, either to replace a proportion of conventional materials or to modify the properties of the finished mixture.
MacRebur, a company established in Scotland, has been involved in developing this technology. In 2017, recycled plastic was incorporated into resurfacing work on the A7 in Carlisle, in a project undertaken with Cumbria County Council.
The amount of plastic involved was equivalent to approximately 500,000 plastic bottles and 800,000 carrier bags.
That is quite a striking illustration of what might be possible. Material that might otherwise have been thrown away was used in constructing a road.
The company has argued that its technology can reduce the quantity of conventional bitumen required and potentially improve the durability of certain road surfaces. If such improvements can be demonstrated over the long term, there could be savings in both maintenance expenditure and environmental impact.
Another trial took place in Motherwell, Scotland, in 2025. North Lanarkshire Council and its partners used a product called EcoFlakes in resurfacing part of Chapelknowe Road. Around half a tonne of recycled-plastic additive was incorporated into the asphalt as part of a wider programme investigating ways of reducing emissions from road maintenance.
Unlike some earlier methods of adding plastic to asphalt, the new material is designed to mix more uniformly with the bitumen.
There are obvious attractions to this approach. Britain has an extensive road network requiring continual maintenance, and even relatively small amounts of recycled material in each resurfacing project could create a sizeable market if the technology proved suitable for wider use.
Before getting too enthusiastic, though, we should recognise that there are unresolved questions.
Road surfaces undergo enormous stresses. Heavy vehicles, changing temperatures, water and frost all affect their condition. An additive that appears successful in a relatively short trial may behave differently after ten or twenty years.
A report prepared for the Scottish Road Research Board in 2021 concluded that the evidence then available did not establish a convincing overall technical, environmental and economic case for adding waste plastic to asphalt. More recent trials may help answer some of the questions raised, but proper long-term testing remains essential.
There is also the issue of microplastics. Road surfaces gradually wear away, and researchers are concerned that incorporating additional plastic could contribute to the release of small particles into the environment.
It would be foolish to respond to plastic pollution by developing a system that merely spreads it more widely across our roads and waterways.
But equally, it would be wrong to dismiss a potentially useful technology before we have properly investigated it. We need independent trials, long-term monitoring and reliable evidence about how these materials perform, including what happens when the roads are eventually resurfaced.
If the technology proves environmentally sound and economically competitive, we should be prepared to use it. That is what sensible industrial innovation is about.
Plastic in concrete and other building materials
The possibilities extend beyond roads.
Researchers have been examining whether waste plastic can replace some of the sand or stone traditionally used in concrete. Given the extraordinary quantities of concrete consumed in construction, this is potentially significant.
A study published in 2022 by researchers associated with Aston University, the University of South Wales and the University of the West of England examined the use of waste plastic as a partial substitute for fine aggregates in concrete pavements.
They found that replacing five per cent of fine aggregate by weight with suitable plastic waste met the feasibility criteria used in their research. Higher proportions were less successful, generally reducing the strength and workability of the concrete, although some non-structural applications may still be possible.
Nobody should conclude from this that builders can simply start tipping unwanted plastic into concrete mixers. The strength of concrete matters, particularly when it forms part of a load-bearing structure, and unsuitable materials could create serious safety problems.
Nevertheless, there may be useful applications in paving, certain panels and other products where the necessary performance can be demonstrated.
It is worth remembering that concrete construction consumes vast quantities of aggregates. Even modest reductions in the use of newly quarried materials could be worthwhile, provided that the environmental benefits of substitution outweigh any disadvantages.
Replacing sand with plastic does not, of course, eliminate the emissions associated with producing cement. Nor does it automatically follow that concrete containing waste plastic will be more environmentally friendly. The effects on durability, manufacturing and eventual demolition must all be considered.
But it would be a mistake to overlook these developments simply because the techniques are not yet suitable for every application.
Some of the most practical opportunities may involve manufacturing complete products from recycled plastic rather than mixing it into concrete.
In Doncaster, the council has been trialling an alternative to traditional concrete kerbs. The product, known as Durakerb, is manufactured using around 88 per cent recycled polymer material, including plastic recovered from milk bottles, caps and other household and commercial waste.
The kerbs weigh less than six kilograms each, considerably less than conventional concrete alternatives.
That has implications beyond reducing waste. Anyone who has worked in construction will understand the problems associated with repeatedly lifting heavy materials. Concrete cutting can also expose workers to hazardous silica dust.
Lighter products may make some tasks safer and easier, provided they meet the relevant standards for strength and durability.
This is an interesting example of how environmental improvements could go hand in hand with better working conditions.
Recycled plastics are also being used to manufacture fencing, decking, benches, drainage products, bollards, boards and other items. Some of these applications are already established, while others are still developing.
There is no reason why councils, public bodies and private companies should not consider suitable recycled-plastic products when buying materials for their projects.
Imagine local authorities purchasing park benches, fencing, selected drainage components or road kerbs manufactured from plastic collected and recycled in Britain. We would be creating a market for a material that currently costs us money to dispose of.
The important qualification is that the resulting products must be durable, safe and capable of being dealt with responsibly at the end of their useful lives.
A plastic bottle that can be turned into another bottle should not automatically be diverted into concrete, where separating and recycling the plastic again might be difficult. The best use depends on the type and quality of the recovered material.
But different plastics require different solutions. We should be developing a range of practical uses rather than expecting every piece of waste packaging to return to its original form.
This is where recycling could become part of a much wider British manufacturing industry.
The extraordinary business of exporting our rubbish
The Basel Action Network reports that Britain exported approximately 675,000 tonnes of plastic waste in 2025, compared with 598,000 tonnes the previous year. Among the major destinations were Türkiye and the Netherlands.
Those figures deserve some thought.
Not every tonne exported was necessarily destined for inappropriate treatment. There are legitimate international markets for recyclable materials, and some overseas companies possess specialist processing facilities.
Nevertheless, we should ask why so much of our plastic waste needs to leave the country.
There are environmental concerns about long-distance transportation and the treatment of exported waste, particularly where facilities operate under weaker controls or where tracking the ultimate destination proves difficult.
But I am also concerned about what these exports tell us economically.
We hear constant demands for economic growth, greater productivity and stronger British manufacturing. Yet we continue sending substantial quantities of potentially useful materials overseas because we lack sufficient domestic processing capacity or because the economics of recycling here are unfavourable.
It is difficult to see how this serves the country’s long-term interests.
What makes the situation worse is that our recycling industry has actually been losing capacity.
Research published in June 2026 by Ceres Waste, Renewables & Environment, commissioned by Viridor, estimated that approximately 22 per cent of Britain’s plastics recycling capacity disappeared between 2023 and 2025. That represents around 260,000 tonnes of annual capacity.
So while the country is trying to collect more plastic for recycling, part of the industry needed to process it has been closing.
There is a contradiction here that government cannot afford to ignore.
The difficulties are largely economic. Recycled plastics have to compete against virgin plastics produced from oil and gas. When virgin material is cheap, manufacturers have less incentive to purchase recycled alternatives, particularly if they can obtain consistent quality at lower prices.
Meanwhile, a recycling company must pay for collecting or acquiring material, sorting it, cleaning it, removing contamination and processing it. There are machinery costs, energy bills, maintenance costs, wages and regulatory requirements.
A new recycling plant requires considerable capital investment, and nobody will make that investment without some reasonable prospect of selling the resulting products.
We should not be surprised that businesses close when their costs rise and their selling prices fall.
But we ought to recognise that leaving everything to short-term market conditions is unlikely to produce the recycling infrastructure the country needs.
This is a familiar British problem. We identify an economic or environmental objective, announce policies intended to achieve it and then assume that the necessary industrial capacity will somehow emerge.
It doesn’t always work that way.
If we want a stronger domestic recycling industry, we need policies that make investment commercially viable and give manufacturers a reason to buy the material it produces.
Making manufacturers take responsibility
Government has already taken some steps in this direction, although there is a good deal more to do.
The Plastic Packaging Tax, introduced in 2022, applies to qualifying packaging containing less than 30 per cent recycled plastic. From April 2026, the rate has been £228.82 per tonne.
The idea is to encourage manufacturers to include more recycled material in their products rather than relying entirely on newly produced polymers.
This seems reasonable. However, there is a difference between encouraging companies to use recycled plastic and ensuring that the material is actually processed in Britain.
We could meet some environmental objectives while continuing to import recycled material from overseas, leaving British recycling companies struggling to survive.
This is why taxation needs to be considered alongside industrial investment and procurement policy.
Another important reform is Extended Producer Responsibility for packaging. The principle is that manufacturers and other businesses placing packaging on the market should meet more of the costs associated with collecting and dealing with it after use.
For years, much of this expense has fallen on councils and ultimately the public, while companies have been free to market products in packaging that is unnecessarily difficult to recycle.
That arrangement has never seemed particularly fair.
If a manufacturer chooses to use several layers of incompatible plastic to package a product, why should everyone else bear the financial consequences?
The revised system now adjusts producer charges according to how recyclable packaging is. Materials that are difficult to recycle can attract higher fees, while those that are easier to process receive more favourable treatment.
It is a sensible principle, although its success will depend on how effectively the rules are enforced and whether the incentives are strong enough to influence manufacturers’ decisions.
We also need better packaging design. Some products are wrapped in an almost comical quantity of plastic, much of which is unnecessary.
Of course, packaging has a purpose. It protects goods, preserves food and prevents waste. Getting rid of useful packaging could actually make matters worse if the result were more food being thrown away.
But there is surely a distinction between packaging that genuinely protects a product and packaging designed largely for convenience, presentation or marketing.
Manufacturers should be expected to justify the materials they use and consider what will happen to them afterwards.
And if we want a market for recycled materials, the public sector could help create one.
Local authorities and government bodies purchase large quantities of construction materials, furniture, containers and other manufactured products. Where recycled materials meet the necessary quality, safety and environmental standards, they should be seriously considered.
That would give recycling businesses more confidence that there will be customers for what they produce.
It could also help create the conditions for further investment in facilities like those at Kettering and Corby.
Why recycling needs to be easier
We cannot leave everything to manufacturers and government. Households have a part to play, although I sometimes think we make the business of recycling unnecessarily complicated.
The rules can vary from one council area to another. Something accepted for recycling in one district may be rejected in the next. People are expected to distinguish between different types of packaging, interpret labels and remember which materials must be taken to supermarket collection points.
I doubt that most people deliberately put unsuitable items in recycling bins. More often, they are trying to do the right thing without being entirely sure what that involves.
Some councils provide excellent information, but the system as a whole could be much clearer.
England’s Simpler Recycling reforms are intended to bring greater consistency, but there has already been a significant setback. Plans to require councils to collect flexible plastics from households were originally due to take effect in March 2027. In July 2026, the government postponed the requirement until April 2030.
The reason was largely a shortage of sorting and processing capacity.
Research for the Local Government Association identified around 139,000 tonnes of UK plastic film reprocessing capacity, much of which is already used for cleaner commercial material or other types of plastic.
There is an obvious problem with instructing millions of households to separate additional materials if we lack the facilities to recycle them.
I would rather see proper facilities established than have councils collecting vast quantities of plastic which eventually end up being burnt or discarded anyway.
But postponement cannot be allowed to become an excuse for doing nothing.
The years between now and 2030 should be used to expand collection arrangements, invest in processing facilities and develop markets for the recovered material. Supermarkets should continue offering collection points for suitable flexible packaging in the meantime.
There is also a case for making recycling labels much clearer. People should be told whether something can actually be recycled through the arrangements available to them, not simply whether recycling it is theoretically possible somewhere in the world.
Another reform worth supporting is the deposit return system planned for drinks containers from October 2027.
Under the proposed arrangements, consumers will pay a refundable 20p deposit on eligible drinks containers and receive it back when the empty container is returned. The schemes in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland will cover specified plastic bottles and metal cans, while Wales is developing arrangements that also include glass.
The principle is hardly revolutionary. Many people will remember when bottles were routinely returned because they had a value.
Giving a discarded container a small financial value encourages people to return it rather than throw it away, and separating bottles from other waste can make it easier to obtain high-quality material for recycling.
There will be costs and practical difficulties, especially for smaller retailers, but the idea deserves a fair chance.
Why should we bother?
There are people who regard environmental measures as expensive distractions from more immediate economic concerns. I think that is a mistaken way of looking at this issue.
Plastic recycling is about making better use of resources, reducing unnecessary costs and creating economic opportunities. Those are matters that ought to concern everybody, regardless of their wider views about environmental policy.
There is, of course, a substantial environmental argument as well.
Conventional plastics are mainly manufactured from fossil fuels. Producing them requires energy and generates greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling suitable materials can reduce demand for newly manufactured plastic and, depending on the process involved, substantially reduce the associated environmental impact.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimated that the global plastics lifecycle was responsible for around 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, equivalent to approximately 3.4 per cent of global emissions that year.
There is also the problem of plastic pollution in rivers, seas and the wider environment. Anyone who has walked along a beach after a storm will have seen evidence of it.
Larger pieces of plastic can break down into smaller particles, contributing to microplastic pollution. Scientists are still investigating the full environmental and health implications of these particles, but allowing persistent plastic waste to accumulate is hardly a sensible policy.
Incineration is sometimes presented as a solution because modern energy-from-waste facilities can generate electricity or heat. Such plants have a role in managing residual waste, but burning plastic also releases the carbon contained within it. More importantly, once the material has been burnt, it cannot be used again.
There is a strong argument for recovering useful materials before they reach that stage.
We should also remember that recycling is not always the best answer. Avoiding unnecessary waste in the first place is preferable, and reusing a product can often be better than breaking it down and manufacturing another one.
A refillable container used repeatedly may be a more sensible solution than a succession of single-use containers, even if every one of them can theoretically be recycled.
The objective should be to reduce the total environmental cost of what we consume, rather than simply increasing the amount of rubbish we place in recycling bins.
Recycling and the future of British industry
What interests me most about the developments in Northamptonshire is the possibility of connecting environmental policy with a serious programme of industrial renewal.
Britain has lost a great deal of manufacturing capacity over recent decades. Whole communities have experienced the consequences, with secure industrial employment replaced by lower-paid and often less stable work.
We cannot simply recreate the industries of the past, but that does not mean we should abandon the idea of making things in this country.
Recycling offers opportunities for precisely the sort of skilled employment we ought to be encouraging. Modern sorting and processing plants require engineers, technicians, machine operators, maintenance workers, production specialists and logistics staff. Developing new construction materials brings opportunities for research, product design and manufacturing.
There is also the potential for businesses supplying equipment, maintaining machinery and developing more efficient industrial processes.
These are not imaginary jobs in some distant green economy. They are the kinds of jobs that facilities like Kettering and Corby already support.
We should also make sure they are good jobs. The recycling industry can involve demanding and sometimes hazardous work. Employees may handle contaminated materials or operate complex machinery, and they deserve proper training, safe conditions, fair wages and effective representation.
There would be little achievement in building an environmentally responsible industry if the people working in it were treated as disposable.
I would like to see a national approach that links improved recycling collections with investment in processing capacity and the development of British markets for recycled products.
That would involve government, local authorities, manufacturers, universities and the recycling industry working together. It would also require some willingness to support long-term investment rather than expecting every project to deliver an immediate commercial return.
There is a role for properly targeted public investment, although it should come with conditions concerning environmental performance, employment standards and demonstrable economic benefits.
Public procurement could provide an initial market for suitable recycled materials, particularly in construction and infrastructure. Government should also support independent research into the use of waste plastics in roads and building products, rather than leaving the evidence to manufacturers with a commercial interest in promoting them.
I would like to see us become better at measuring what actually happens to the plastic we collect. Official recycling figures are useful, but the public deserves to know how much material is genuinely reprocessed, how much remains in Britain and how much ultimately becomes a usable new product.
There is no reason to settle permanently for recycling only 57.3 per cent of our plastic packaging.
If Britain could raise that figure to 70 per cent, based on the quantity of plastic packaging waste generated in 2025, it would mean recovering roughly another 269,000 tonnes a year. That is not an official new target I am proposing on behalf of anyone, but it illustrates the scale of what could be achieved through determined action.
Getting there would require substantial investment, better packaging design and more reliable collection systems. But it is hardly beyond the capabilities of a developed industrial nation.
The real question is whether we are prepared to organise our economy in a way that makes it possible.
I don’t imagine that plastic recycling will solve Britain’s economic problems, and I am certainly not suggesting that we should try to find a use for every piece of disposable plastic rather than reducing unnecessary consumption.
But the present situation makes remarkably little sense.
We use valuable resources to manufacture materials, throw much of them away after a single use, and then spend money dealing with the consequences. We export recyclable waste while our own processing industry struggles to remain commercially viable. We talk endlessly about the importance of manufacturing, yet overlook opportunities to supply British factories with materials recovered here.
Meanwhile, the technology exists to do much better. The Kettering and Corby facilities demonstrate how discarded packaging can be collected, sorted and returned to manufacturing. Experiments with plastic roads, concrete and construction products suggest other possibilities worth investigating, provided they prove safe, durable and environmentally worthwhile.
What we need is not another collection of grand announcements about becoming greener. We need practical policies that connect waste collection with industrial investment, scientific research and manufacturing.
There is something fundamentally wrong with an economy that can produce millions of tonnes of useful material but cannot find an economical way to recover and reuse much of it.
Perhaps we should stop thinking of recycling as merely a question of what goes into which bin. It is really about what sort of economy we want: one that continually consumes resources and throws them away, or one that makes better use of what it already has.
Britain has the expertise to do considerably more than it does at present. Kettering and Corby provide a small but encouraging example.
We should be building on it.
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